Abstract
With the motto ‘One Health – animal welfare for the benefit of all species’ the 56th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Laboratory Animal Science and the 18th Advanced Training Course of the GV-IGTP took place in Munich (September 12–14, 2018).
With its two large universities, the Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM), as well as the Helmholtz Zentrum München, various Max Planck Institutes, the Innovation and Founding Center Biotechnology (IZB) and numerous companies operating in the field of biosciences, Munich is home to a broad range of academic and scientific excellence and expertise. This includes biomedical research areas like diabetes, genetics, immunology, oncology, cardiology, neurobiology, neuroimmunology, and neuro-degenerative disorders to name just a few. Research in the field of these diseases requires laboratory animals. Therefore, the welfare of these animals is an important topic. Whenever research for the benefit of mankind and animals is performed in animals, society legitimately demands the best conditions for the animals used.
Achieving this aim has always been the main objective of laboratory animal science. This link between man and animal in research is stressed by the motto of the meeting ‘One Health – animal welfare for the benefit of all species’.
Consequently – amongst others – topics like severity assessment, anesthesia and analgesia, refinement of procedures and housing conditions as well as planning and construction of animal facilities were an integral part of the congress. This included products for breeding and housing animals under optimal conditions as well as equipment for excellent research. For this reason, the Annual Meeting again featured a showcase of an industry exhibition where 70 companies presented their latest developments and established products. Attendance, with 1167 registered participants and exhibitors, was overwhelming. It was a meeting with many stimulating scientific discussions accompanied by an amazing industry exhibition. The community is growing, and the need to exchange and present information is constantly growing as this field becomes more and more challenging.
Education and training of people taking care of, or performing experiments in, animals are essential for animal welfare and the quality of research. GV-SOLAS aimed to satisfy this interest by offering 12 workshops and 16 seminars in parallel to the main scientific program. A poster exhibition with 62 presentations was made available throughout the entire meeting with presenters being available at specific times.
One of the focal points of the conference was the severity assessment of procedures. In this context, two interactive FELASA Workshops on the Classification and Reporting of Severity were offered, which were fully booked – participants spanning from scientists, animal care staff to animal welfare officers and members of Competent Authorities. After a general introduction, small groups discussed different animal models. The groups then presented their outcome to the audience. Using an anonymous voting tool, all participants were then asked to give their opinion on various scenarios. This initiated lively discussions and pointed out how difficult it is to set a defined standard. The conclusion was that more needs to be done in this area. This was also reflected in one of the focus sessions held by André Bleich and René Tolba on Severity Assessment in Animal-Based Research, a research project (FOR 2591) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). This project aims to improve various objective methods and techniques while, at the same time, developing new ones and combining them to create a scale for standardization of the assessment of severity.
Among the seminars offered was one on ‘Talking to the public about animal research’. The speakers included Hannes Schlender from scienceRELATIONS and Kirk Leech from EARA. Another seminar focused on the ethical evaluation of animal research. The analysis of harm–benefit is one of the central subjects in the German animal research application process. Other seminars focused on more practical aspects, including the severity classification of zebrafish and the use of farm animals and other large animals in research.